Columbia students protested outside Columbia Law School on Monday in opposition to former Columbia President Michael Sovern’s involvement in a lockout at the Sotheby’s auction house.
Sovern, who is currently a Law School professor, is the chairman of Sotheby’s, which replaced 42 art handlers after contract negotiations failed. Protestors said that Sotheby’s was attempting to cut those workers’ hours and pensions and that the unionized handlers have been replaced with non-unionized temp workers.
Yoni Golijov, CC ’12, decried Sotheby’s labor practices at the Columbia rally, which took place as part of the Student Week of Action, an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
“Why would they effectively pay their CEO $60,000 a day when they demand their workers work without pension? How does that make sense?” Golijov said. “I’ll tell you how it makes sense—it’s greedy.”
Mara Kravitz, GS/JTS ’12, created a Change.org petition to protest Sotheby’s treatment of the art handlers, which had 130 signatures last night.
“If you’re denying pensions of workers, and yet some paint on a canvas can be worth millions of dollars, there’s a clear misunderstanding of the value of things,” Kravitz said. “Real people haven’t been able to feed their families for 12 weeks because they’ve been locked out of their jobs.”
In a statement, Sotheby’s spokesperson Diana Phillips said that the auction house had been bargaining with the art handlers in good faith since April, but was forced to replace the workers to avoid “a potential mid-season walk-off” during the fall sales season.
“We therefore took the unfortunate but essential steps to temporarily replace these colleagues with experienced art handlers until we are able to reach a new labor agreement,” Phillips said. “At that time, the 42 art handlers will be able to immediately return to their jobs, which is a development we would all welcome.”
Sovern did not respond to requests for comment, and the University declined to comment.
Kravitz explained that she didn’t believe Monday’s rally would end the lockout by itself, but that it would put pressure on Sovern and Sotheby’s. She said she wants professors to feel comfortable standing up against labor injustices.
“It’s not easy to stand up at a place like Columbia, where people are constantly stressed out,” Kravitz said. “It’s easy to get sucked in.”
Police tried to get the approximately 20 protestors to move across 116th Street, citing public safety concerns and noise complaints from the Law School, although the protestors argued with them until they were allowed to stay.
“If it was actually illegal, they definitely would have arrested us because they were pissed off,” Golijov said. “They were pissed off because they knew it wasn’t illegal.”
Nino Rekhviashvili, BC ’14, didn’t believe the officers’ justification for trying to move the protest across the street.
“I feel like calling the cops on the cops,” Rekhviashvili said. “If protests are going to be shut down before they have a chance to disseminate information, then there can be no protests.”
A police officer on the scene said the officers eventually decided to take a “softer approach” to the protestors and allowed them to stay in their original location.
“We’re not trying to take a heavy-handed approach,” the officer said. “We’re trying to take a diplomatic approach.”
Rekhviashvili emphasized the importance of participating in events like the rally and the Occupy movements.
“The more students, the more faculty, the more clerical workers participate, the more the issues we’re fighting for become apparent,” Rekhviashvili said.
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